AIDEN’S STORY by Caolan McNeill
Silence. At last his world was filled with silence. He felt like breaking down. He had seen people do it before and could never understand why. He understood now. His body juddered as he realised he could no longer control his movements. He was now reduced to just endless blubbering and he found that tears and mucus seeped from his eyes and nose. That feeling of loneliness was beginning to set in. He knew it could be a matter of minutes, hours or days before anyone came back. He had never been in such a situation. All he had now were his thoughts. Everything he had done in the past few years flooded back to him and created a map to point to how he had landed himself in this place. Alone in his darkened, silent room, he began to think.
It had been a bright Thursday morning when Aiden woke. Aiden hated Thursdays, except no-one ever knew why. Then again, no-one had ever really bothered to ask him why. “It’s the day before Friday,” he’d mumble as an answer. This one didn’t appear to be any different. Aiden was a man who thrived on routine. As such he had one in place: get up, get washed, have breakfast, feed the dog, watch the morning news and head off to work. That’s how he had stayed under the radar; that’s how he had stayed who he was for so long. Nobody had any clue who Aiden was, nor did they really care. That’s why Aiden was so good at what he did in his life. All the world knew was that military organisations around the globe were experiencing difficulties with their electronics. Engineers on-site weren’t able to solve the problem by themselves so the experts were brought in. Eventually, with the situation spiralling out of control, freelance engineers were being called on by whoever had the most money in their pocket. Some systems were repaired, but the vital ones? The ones that needed to be operating in order to fight? They were the ones that stayed down.
The common link? The Internet. The Internet was a tool of vast capabilities used by all of these engineers. It would be their downfall. The media suspected a cyber-terrorist group of some kind, something they had seen before, a group of people squatting in a basement in front of a few screens. But they were wrong. All that is needed to change the world is the will of a single person. Aiden was a prime example of this.
Officially, Aiden worked for McAfee, an anti-virus computer company in California. They were one of the best selling anti-virus engines around and, make no mistake, they did their job. It had been what most appealed to Aiden as a career. He went to work from nine to five, earned a wage and came home, but that was just a show, a preparation. The real work was done at home. Taking what he learned from his work, he programmed viruses to evade the anti-viruses which he was developing at McAfee. Then he used them to target any military organisation from Al-Qaeda and the P.I.R.A to the Defence Forces of the U.S.A and Israel. These organisations were at the heart of every news bulletin and more and more of the electronics of these fighting forces fell when the virus entered via the Internet. It is almost impossible to track something over the Internet, which is what made Aiden impossible to find. As a result of this he began to get lazy. Cocky. His downfall.
Aiden first wanted to see these organisations fall when he was just eight years old. Living in County Down, he heard of the doings of the I.R.A before most of the world did. He was, however, lucky that he managed to avoid them for a large portion of his life. He didn’t have any feelings of loyalty to the Crown nor to the Irish Tricolour. Regardless, you don’t live in Northern Ireland without the conflicts and tension affecting you in some way. Aiden was affected in a truly horrible way.
It had been a Thursday when Aiden’s father told him that they were going to the lake to do some fishing. He hadn’t ever been fishing before and from what he knew of it there was a lot of quiiet sitting around in the boat or on the lakeside. Aiden wasn’t a patient little boy. Like most young boys his age he wanted to be running, jumping and climbing, and he wanted to go to bed exhausted so that he would fall asleep quicker and could do it all again tomorrow. Fishing did not seem like something that would tire him out in the way he would like.
It was an hour’s journey to the spot to which Aiden’s dad wanted to go. They took up all they needed in their arms and made the short march to his dad’s “Favourite Fishing Spot.” Just as Aiden suspected, it would be a peaceful afternoon, the kind of afternoon where everyone enjoyed the silence. An hour came and went, yet Aiden hadn’t caught a single fish. This frustrated him, and his frustration was fuelled by his dad reeling in his second catch of the day. His dad reassured him that he wasn’t expected to catch anything because it was “something requiring a lot of practice.”
Another hour passed and Aiden was getting fed up of the whole day out. His dad sighed and began to pack everything up, when shouting and roaring was met with a large crash and several loud bangs. Both father and son looked to where the sounds were before their eyes met again. It was now that Aiden’s father spoke:
“Head for the car, but go the long way around.”
There was a look in Aiden’s father’s eyes which said nothing but:
“Do not argue with me boy.”
So Aiden complied.
He had made it to the car but it had been a number of minutes and his dad was still no-where to be seen. Another five dragged by and Aiden couldn’t bear it anymore. He leapt out of the car with the fishknife. The bangs and crashes were few and far between at this stage and they still gave Aiden a fright every time because he was, of course, moving towards them in the hopes of finding his father. Every step he took seemed to take an age – until eventually he came across a groaning man. It was not a pretty sight. His clothes were now ripped and had holes in them, the boots were so covered in dirt, blood that Aiden couldn’t tell what the original colour was. However, the most distinctive feature of this man was that he was missing his left arm. Aiden wanted to move away, to continue searching elsewhere, but something kept turning him back. The clothes looked like a fisherman’s.
“DAD!”
After a number of hours, Aiden was being looked after by a paramedic. Aiden had learned a while ago that his dad would be okay, maybe not the same as he was, and his fishing days were probably over, but he would live. Aiden had yet to meet with his mother, as she was at home, an hour’s drive away at best. The paramedic got to the point and asked him if he was alright.
“I don’t like Thursdays.”
Aiden still thought about the day and shuddered. His dad had died two years ago. The fact he survived showed a hardiness that Aiden hoped he’d inherited.
Another day’s “work” done at McAfee. Aiden went home. A blue van was prowling through his estate. It was the small hours of the morning, so nobody was around, except those who were too drunk or tired to care about a non-descript van. That was the idea. Inconspicuous. Five masked men emerged when it pulled to a stop outside the residence of one McAfee employee. The raid was loud to instil fear, quick to avoid detection and efficient, because this was not the first time Al-Qaeda had done this, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. At 2:23, Aiden was bundled into a van and driven off.
At 8:49 he was blindfolded, restrained and for the next number of hours tortured by the internal security unit of Al-Qaeda. They suspected he was the reason for their problems, and rightly so, but Aiden didn’t want to admit that. Oh, how Aiden tried to withhold information; but he was just a normal person, and the hard truth is that everyone breaks eventually.
He tried to hold on in the hopes that someone would come and help him, but who would? No-one would even know he was gone. He was off the radar. Initially it seemed like a blessing, but now it came back to haunt him. He had stolen information from almost all fighting forces in the world. It had been a game in the beginning. He had isolated himself to avoid detection, but now it came back to haunt him. The beatings numbed him. Hits began to hurt less and less. It was in this state of mind that Aiden wondered what was next for him. It was a highly unlikely scenario that if he was a good boy they would let him go. No, Aiden realised that no matter how much he begged, pleaded, cried, promised, blackmailed and screamed, they were not going to let him go. So he decided on giving them the one thing that could possibly change their minds – information.
Everything Aiden had worked for began to flow out of his mouth in a blur of groans, gasps and sobs. With every passing second these men became the most intelligent fighting force on the planet. Aiden was fully aware of the potential havoc that Al-Qaeda could raise with all of this information, but if he kept talking then they weren’t going to hit him again. However, his well of knowledge was drying up, so he started to ramble; he panicked and eventually the interrogators had had enough for one day. They gave him one more hit and threw him into a dark room. It hardly mattered – he had told them everything. Why he was doing it, how he was doing it, what he was achieving? Everything he knew about the operation, they now knew.
This room that he was now in had no light whatsoever. It reminded Aiden of being in a cave when the tour guides turned off the lights. He tried to reassure himself. He tried to remember that this was another form of abuse. Deprive his senses. He tried to not let it get to his head, but then he realised what his interrogators had done for him.
Silence. At last his world was filled with silence. He felt like breaking down. He had seen people do it before and could never understand why they did. He understood now. His body juddered as he realised he could no longer control his movements. He was now reduced to just endless blubbering and he found that tears and mucus seeped from his eyes and nose. That feeling of loneliness was beginning to set in. He knew it could be a matter of minutes, hours or days before anyone came back. He had never been in such a situation. All he had now were his thoughts. Everything he had done in the past few years flooded back to him and created a map to point to how he had landed himself in this place. Alone in his darkened, silent room, he began to think.